STUDIO: Warner Brothers
RELEASE DATE: May 6, 2008
STARRING: Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, Jami Gertz, and Cary Elwes
WRITTEN BY: Michael Crichton & Anne-Marie Martin
DIRECTED BY: Jan De Bont
FEATURES: Commentary by Director Jan De Bont and Visual Effects Supervisor Stefen Fangmeier
Theatrical Trailers
New Featurette - "Chasing the Storm: Twister Revisited"
The History Channel Documentary: "Nature Tech: Tornadoes"
"Anatomy of a Twister"
"HBO First Look: The Making of Twister"
Van Halen "Humans Being" Music Video

What do you do when EVERYONE already owns your movie on DVD? Release a new edition. To be fair, the new two-disc special edition of Twister exists on standard-definition (or old-ray) DVD because it's being released for the first time on Blu-Ray. But how do you address the millions of people out there who haven't made the jump to Blu-Ray and have worn out their copy of Twister, one of the earliest hits of the DVD format? Apparently, you give them a slightly remastered picture and one new featurette. It's unlikely to be enough for Twister fans to upgrade, but if you've somehow avoided picking up this excellent title in the past, this is the edition for you. It's a landmark of the DVD format, one of those first titles that proved that with an impressive enough transfer, you could actually make a movie better than it was when you saw it in theaters. All good DVD collectors should own it.

When I was younger, my dad, a rabid technophile, was one of the first people to get a DVD player and hook it up to an impressive surround sound system. When he wanted to show off the system to friends and family, he would grab his copy of Twister. Even the original DVD, had an audio track that brilliantly dispersed the sounds of nature gone mad to every corner of the room. Subsequent releases, including this special edition. have kept that emphasis on audio. If you have a surround sound system, Twister is the movie for you. The picture on this edition has supposedly been remastered, but it looks the same as the previous version, better than the first version, but nothing spectacular. Twister looks great for a ten-year-old, CGI-heavy movie (a lot of '90s CGI movies already look dated), but that's a testament to the filmmaking and special effects more than the video transfer. To be fair, there's nothing wrong with the video on this edition, but the audio is the real star.

As for special features, all but one are transfers from previous editions. The commentary has been acclaimed before and the real star of the set is the History Channel Documentary "Nature Tech: Tornadoes". The movie-based featurettes that have been imported are a little dull and repetitive and even Van Halen fans are unlikely to watch "Humans Being" too many times. As for new featurettes, one would assume that the retrospective "Chasing the Storm: Twister Revisited" would be a major draw, but it's kind of dull and includes a lot of the material in the other featurettes. It feels like an afterthought.

It's this simple, if you own the last special edition of Twister, the slightly remastered picture and one featurette won't draw you to this one. If you don't own it, shame on you. Pick it up. On old-ray or Blu-Ray, it's a must-have.